


Butterfly Wings & All Delicate Things

by PenroseByAnyOtherName



Category: Hololive, Virtual Streamer Animated Characters
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Sweethearts, F/F, Fluff, Ina and Calli are cousins, Kiara and Amelia are sisters, Mama Reine, minor injury, that don't make no cents luvs but I don't care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28607673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenroseByAnyOtherName/pseuds/PenroseByAnyOtherName
Summary: Calliope Mori tries to find her purpose in the wrong place and comes home to live with her aunt and cousin. Kiara Takanashi has spent the past two years grieving, waiting for her best friend to come home to her.
Relationships: Mori Calliope/Takanashi Kiara, Ninomae Ina'nis/Watson Amelia (hololive)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 173





	Butterfly Wings & All Delicate Things

It had been two years since Calliope Mori had left to begin training to join the Armed Forces.

In those two years, she had scarcely talked to family and had dropped all connections to even her closest friends. In those two years, she had left her best friend without so much as a word, having to ask her family how she was doing, only half the time finding them to have an answer.

Never in all her life had Calliope expressed an interest in the military. Not to her best friend, who had seen in her the spark of creativity and brilliance, who had encouraged her to go off to university with her, or to pursue a career in music. It had come as a surprise to her, to find her best friend of nearly two decades standing in her room in uniform, waiting for her with tears in her eyes.

What had surprised her less yet hurt far more was the way she held her and kissed her, a first kiss, and a last kiss, and every kiss they had never had between.

They had held each other desperately, like the girls they were. Calliope had kissed her first, holding her as if at any second she may break. She was kissed with the desperation of someone who did not understand but did not want her to go, latched onto her uniform and refusing to let go.

Kiara Takanashi had not seen her in those two years, and she had long since come to terms with never seeing her again. She had stopped expecting someone to tell her she was coming home. She had stopped glancing out the window every chance she got. She had stopped planning what she would say to her upon seeing her again. She had closed the curtains in her bedroom, hating to see the window across from her own dark and empty.

Her little sister had pulled them open for her, hating to see her so sad, and after a while, Kiara did not bother closing them again.

She had seen the lights come on once, watching curiously out of the corner of her eye as things were moved around, Calliope’s aunt and cousin moving furniture, cleaning, opening the window to let in the air. Kiara wondered if they, too, had given up hope of her return.

Kiara found she was, unbelievably, wrong.

Coming back up with her arms full of laundry, Kiara dropped it all at the sight in the window across from her own. Like a dream, and she ran to her window without thinking, without caring that she could be seen in return, and she held onto the windowsill so hard her knuckles went white and her fingers ached.

There, in the room across from her own, was Calliope Mori.

In two years, very little about her had seemed to change. She wore her hair past her shoulders, long, straight, and not yet dyed back to vibrant pink she wore in her youth. She stood straight, she stood tall, and she ran a hand through her hair as she spoke to her aunt. When she saw Kiara staring from her window, she wore a shy smile and waved at her.

Kiara waved back, and for the first time in two years, she let herself smile.

-

How quickly they had gone back to their old habits, it seemed almost strange. Or, it would have been, terribly and completely strange, had they not been so close since childhood, and had they not both been seeking the comfort of a friendship they thought lost.

Sitting on Kiara’s doorstep, they talked and tried to work through their two years apart. Two years, in the broad scope of their relationship, was not very long. It was merely a fraction of their time, and in the greater picture would come to be only a few small pages in their story. In two years, however, they had separately suffered more trauma than their previous lifetimes combined.

“I should have been here,” Calliope said again, fingers tensing around her cane.

“Don’t be silly,” said Kiara. She reached up, gently tucking Calliope’s freshly dyed hair behind her ear. “We got through it, your family helped, and even Amelia is doing better now.”

“To lose both your parents, how can I sit here and try to pretend what I went through was even half as bad.”

“You were injured in training and discharged, with an injury that’s impacted your entire life, I would say we’re pretty even, all things considered,” Kiara said as she put her hand on Calliope’s shoulder. “I just want to be here with you now, to make sure you’re okay.”

Calliope looked away, as if she was in pain, but Kiara could see her smiling as she whispered, “I think I’m more okay than I thought I would be.”

-

Laying out in the Pavolia’s back garden, they watched the clouds above them go by.

It had been a week, and Kiara had spent the entire week waiting for Calliope to bring up the kiss. She felt almost hopeless, not wanting to push when Calliope had more pressing things to be thinking about, but it was all she had thought about for two years. She wanted to know what it meant, if it meant anything at all, and she sighed as she watched Calliope from the corner of her eye.

If Calliope would not ask, she would.

“What did it mean?”

Turning her head, Calliope looked over at her. Her brow creased. “What?”

“The kiss.”

“Oh.”

They stayed in silence for a moment, still watching the clouds, or really pretending to, while really both watching each other. Calliope eventually closed her eyes and moved her head back so her face was to the sky, and she let out a long breath.

“It didn’t mean anything, Kiara.”

Though she felt like she may puke, or cry, or scream at the top of her lungs, she was stopped by the shine of something in the sun. Looking over, she saw a tear on Calliope’s cheek, watching it fall to the grass as she listened to the way she tried to even her breathing. She wanted to hold her, to ask if it was her leg, if she needed someone to help carry her, but Calliope’s sigh stopped her.

Fists clenching at her side, Calliope whispered, “I promise.”

-

“What’s she like?”

Rolling her eyes, Kiara turned to look at her little sister. “You’ve met her before.”

“I know, but,” Amelia Takanashi sighed, folding her arms. “Not since she came back. Is she different?”

“No, Amelia, she’s not any different.”

“Then why do you act so weird around each other?” Amelia asked, following Kiara as she started to make dinner.

“We don’t act weird around each other,” insisted Kiara.

“You do, you stare at each other all silent and you’re friends but you don’t talk much and she always looks like she’s in pain,” Amelia said with certainty.

“She’s just tired, being on her leg takes a lot out of her and she’s still adjusting.”

Amelia was not happy with that answer, folding her arms and huffing. “Why do you cry when you come back from seeing her?”

“I,” Kiara breathed, hands shaking as she held onto the counter. “I don’t.”

“You do, you always look so sad, and you cried when she came back,” Amelia said, tone gentler as she went to her older sister.

Kiara let Amelia hug her, wrapping her arms around her and squeezing her close as she could. “I never told you what happened before she left.”

“Is it sad? You don’t have to tell me,” said Amelia, resting her head on Kiara’s shoulder.

“Not sad, no, it just makes it harder now,” Kiara explained gently. “She kissed me.”

“Ew.”

“Oh, not ew, you baby,” Kiara shrieked, but smiling as she shoved Amelia off.

“So are you weird because you’re dating now?” Amelia asked.

“No, it’s because she won’t talk about it with me, and I want to be dating, but I don’t think she knows that yet.”

“So tell her,” Amelia suggested simply.

“It’s not that easy, Amelia.”

“Yes it is,” countered Amelia, grinning. “That’s how I got Ina to kiss me.”

“It’s different, Amelia, things are different,” said Kiara. She was still shaking as she tried to open a cupboard.

It got shut as soon as she opened it. “Do you want pizza?”

“Pizza?”

“I can call,” Amelia said, half proud and half sweet as she looked up at her older sister. “You’re a bad cook even when you’re not upset, and I do actually want to eat tonight.”

“You’re terrible,” Kiara sighed, shaking her head as she wrapped her sister in a hug. “I can call if you tell me what you want.”

Smiling, Kiara listened as Amelia listed off what it was she wanted, asking if Ina could come over and then what she might want, and if Kiara knew what Calliope liked if she wanted to come over, too. Things were different, she thought, but getting better.

-

Kiara found herself wallowing in nostalgia more than she cared to admit.

She had Calliope back, her world set right again, yet it had not undone their years apart or what had happened to them in that time. Calliope still flinched to have her cane touched, Kiara still found it hard to get through her days without crying, and though they had each other, there was an unseeable and untouchable barrier between them, stopping them simply going to each other and righting it all.

Some days she wanted only to be young again, nine years old and stood on a step at her window, leaning out over the windowsill and talking with Calliope across the gap, so late into the night it became dark around them.

She wanted to get a knock on her window in the morning, Calliope having climbed up to see her, just to say good morning or to show her something she had read.

She wanted to wake up to a note taped to Calliope’s window telling her where she was and when she would be back, or asking if she wanted to have a sleepover that night. She missed decorating her own note in return with stickers and hearts and shooting stars.

She wondered if it was not worth trying it, to see if Calliope missed it as well, or if she would even notice. She found one of her sketchbooks and tore a piece of paper from it cleanly as she could, writing in big clear letters a simple sentiment, one she felt aching inside her, calling out not only to who it was for, but to who they both had been.

She taped it to her window, not knowing what she expected in response.

When she came back from dinner that night, she felt her heart skip when she looked across, finding a piece of lined paper taped to the window, saying she missed her, too.

-

“It’s a shame I can no longer climb up to your window,” Calliope teased, resting her head on Kiara’s shoulder as they sat side by side on the Pavolia’s doorstep.

For a moment Kiara wanted to ask why, before remembering with a blush and stopping herself. She was not sure what she could say in return, but before she could stop herself she was speaking. “Then I guess I’ll just have to climb up to your window.”

“What a reversal,” Calliope laughed. “The daring princess scaling up to see her brave knight.”

“I’m the knight here,” Kiara retorted, sticking her nose in the air.

“Uh-huh,” Calliope agree with an affectionate eye roll.

“Do you doubt I could?” Kiara asked in mock hurt.

“Never, I know you too well, and I know you’re way too stubborn to let a little wall stop you from getting what you want.”

Kiara laughed, leaning against Calliope. “I’ll use a ladder if I must.”

“There's a perfectly good lattice to climb, and that’s much more impressive.”

“I’ll try that first, though I hardly want Reine coming after me for destroying the side of the house,” said Kiara. She felt Calliope’s shoulder shaking with laughter.

Pressing her cheek to the top of Kiara’s head, Calliope smiled. “She would sooner blame Amelia than think our most quiet and lovely neighbour had tried climbing up to my window.”

“Then I’m safe to try until I get it right.”

“I look forward to the day you do, though I can’t say I won’t be shocked when you come tumbling through my window.”

They both laughed then, and held each other tighter.

-

They heard it before they saw it, both snickering as they tried to avoid looking, knowing what was going on without even needing to look. They shared looks, glancing between the television and each other, hoping the film or their combined horror and amusement might distract them, but eventually it became too much to take, and they had no choice but to look over.

Amelia laid atop Ina Pavolia - Calliope’s cousin and Amelia’s girlfriend of an impressive four months - and kissed her with all the passion of a romantic poet yet all the skill of the sixteen year old girl she was.

They had been making out for the better part of the film, loudly on Amelia’s part, while Ina had only let out the occasional girlish giggle or caused a sharp slap as she swatted Amelia’s wrist when she tried to stick her hands up her shirt. They did not seem keen on stopping, even with Calliope and Kiara just across the living room from them, able to both hear and see them. Ina seemed somewhat aware, spotting them when they could not help but look, though she seemed not to care.

Kiara decided it was fine, though she laughed into Calliope’s shoulder all the same, and Calliope, too, seemed fine to let it go on. At least they were almost quiet, and they were not demanding attention like they would when they were younger.

Or, they could have let it go on, had Amelia not begun grinding her hips into Ina, causing Kiara to lunge off the settee to grab her and pull her off of her while Calliope laughed into her drink.

-

It was while they were out in the garden, the days warm for the first time in months, and Kiara swapped out her blouses and jumpers for a simple summer dress. It had a low neckline, something she did not typically wear anymore, but it was nice for the warm weather as they sat in the garden and watched the clouds.

At first she felt quite proud, seeing how Calliope stared at her collarbone and further down, pushing her chest out just a little and hoping that Calliope liked what she was looking at.

What she was looking at was not her cleavage, however.

“You kept it?”

Kiara took a moment, before looking down and realising with a scarlet blush what she had on around her neck and was visible with such a low neckline. 

The necklace Calliope had bought her for her thirteenth birthday hung around her neck on its thin silver chain. A small ruby was hanging from the thread-thin chain, resting an inch beneath her collarbone. Idle fingers brushed over the gem, a smile immediately forming as she felt it, an almost instinctual comfort to her.

Holding the ruby between her thumb and finger, Kiara bit her lip and turned her head. “Of course I kept it. I never took it off.”

There was a moment where Kiara thought Calliope might kiss her, a hand at her cheek and dark eyes brimming with what Kiara knew could only be love. Calliope hesitated, before pulling Kiara into a hug. Her chin pressed down on the top of Kiara’s head, and Kiara knew to hold her back as tightly, to hug until Calliope wanted to let go.

She was not yet ready, Kiara knew, but it seemed with every day they got closer.

-

It was nearly midnight, yet neither of them could have cared less.

“We should have a sleepover,” Calliope suggested leaning out of her window and grinning in a way Kiara had not seen since before she left. “Like when we were kids.”

“Why, so your cousin can crash it?” teased Kiara, sitting on her own windowsill.

“As if your sister wasn’t the one who would steal our snacks and fall asleep with you.”

“At least she has Ina to keep her occupied now,” Kiara said with a roll of her eyes.

“Don’t remind me,” Calliope grumbled, playful as she smiled. “I hate remembering Ina’s old enough to be dating..”

“I think it’ll be alright,” said Kiara, leaning her head back and staring up at the stars.

“Then it will be,” Calliope said with absolute certainty. “I’ve never known you to be wrong before.”

-

“Kiara?”

Grinning, Kiara waved at her from the doorstep. “Back so soon?”

“You knew we’d be back around this time,” Calliope said, tone confused. “What’s with the bags? And Amelia?”

“I was thinking maybe a double sleepover would be fun, and once I mentioned it to someone,” Kiara paused, looking down at Amelia, who was already distracted making eyes at Ina. “It was no longer a question.”

“Reine?” Calliope turned.

“They’re always welcome to stay over, sweetheart,” Reine assured her, smiling as Ina ran to greet Amelia with a hug.

Ignoring the way the two girls hugging quickly became making out, Calliope tried her hardest to take Kiara’s bags for her. She got her hands pushed away. “I can carry my own bags.”

“I only want to help,” Calliope insisted, though she winced when she tried bending.

“Help by getting yourself inside and settled,” Kiara said as she hoisted her own and Amelia’s bags into her arms.

Though Calliope sighed, she did not argue, simply shaking her head as she went inside.

-

Turning on her side, Kiara stared at Calliope and gently reached forward, stroking down her jaw and getting her attention. When Calliope turned and smiled at her, Kiara whispered, “Did it really mean nothing?”

“The kiss?” Calliope said, hushed, as if it was a word she should not have said. Sacred, yet forbidden.

“Mhm,” Kiara hummed. She was quiet, gentle, her fingers stroking at Calliope’s face.

“It was a kiss, just a kiss,” said Calliope.

“Kisses mean something,” Kiara told her softly, hopefully. “What did it mean?”

Holding onto Kiara’s wrist, so she could turn her head and kiss at her fingertips, Calliope breathed against her palm, “It meant everything, Kiara.”

-

Sitting on the doorstep, they waited quietly with their heads pressed together. Kiara had offered to supervise Amelia and her girlfriend for the night, taking the mantle from Reine, who was accompanying them on a proper date during the evening. Calliope had offered to help her, knowing it would mean another night together.

They talked idly, still unsure what it was they were, but happy to simply be near each other.

Their moment of peace was interrupted when Reine’s car pulled up. It took only a moment before the girls emerged, Amelia holding the door open for Ina and reaching for her hand the moment she could. She beamed and waved at Kiara with the other hand, doing her best to act cool and walk slowly with Ina instead of running to hug her older sister.

Frowning, Kiara tucked her legs in and glanced at Calliope, then back at Amelia. 

She was, admittedly, jealous of her younger sister’s casual charm and seemingly endless ability to not care about what reaction she would get to what she did. She reached her hand around Ina’s waist, and even from the front Kiara could see her moving it down to hold her girlfriend’s bum. Somehow she got away with it, Reine not seeming to care as she waved to Calliope and Kiara and thanked them in advance for their help.

Amelia could grab her girlfriend by the ass in front of Ina’s mother, yet somehow even alone Kiara could not so much as kiss Calliope’s cheek without worrying. Nothing like when they were younger, and she felt her stomach knot and churn.

Before she could fret for entirely too long, Calliope took her hand and threaded their fingers together. At first Kiara thought it was for balance, Kiara getting up first and helping to pull Calliope up while she pushed on her cane, but Calliope did not drop her hand after, even as she gave her cousin a half hug.

Even as they went inside their hands stayed together, and Kiara smiled to herself, feeling that it was something, if not yet everything.

-

Though it had been said in jest, Calliope was still somehow unsurprised when Kiara swung herself in through her window with a smile that said she knew exactly what she had done yet was not going to address it. Not until Calliope did, of course, which she was happy to do if it meant Kiara presenting herself with confidence.

“Well, aren’t you a dashing sight?” Calliope teased, closing her book and smiling at her from her reading nook.

“Am I?” Kiara asked. Her tone said she knew she was, but that she wanted to hear it again.

“You are, I’m lucky not to have fainted at the mere sight of you,” Calliope said with all the earnest adoration she knew Kiara wanted to hear.

Grinning, Kiara half crawled atop her as she grabbed her cheeks and decided in half of a second that she was going to take a most noble leap. Running her thumb under Calliope’s eye, Kiara purred, “I’d have caught you in my arms without question.”

It was with a moan that Calliope’s words tried to come out, muffled against the impulsive lips of her love. Her hands dropped her book and she grasped blindly and desperately for Kiara. One hand tangled in her hair and the other fell naturally to her waist. Without waiting for any more signs than that, Kiara came completely atop her, not breaking their kiss as she leaned Calliope back and kissed her more deeply.

When they pulled back, eyes shining and lips wet, Calliope could only let out a quiet and startled breath. Kiara kissed her bottom lip, then the corner of her mouth, only stopped by the taste of tears on her tongue.

Stopping, Kiara looked down at her with worry. Her confident demeanour was gone in a second, leaving her terrified she had gone too far. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, not sorry, don’t ever be sorry for that,” Calliope whispered. Holding tighter to Kiara and pulling her in closer, Calliope clutched her and trembled as she said on a breath, “That was everything.”

-

“I think I must have loved you since our first meeting.”

“We were six,” said Kiara, laughing as their hands met and fingers brushed.

“That’s what love at first sight is, isn’t it?” Calliope replied. She turned her head, watching Kiara as she watched the stars. “If not our first meeting, close to it.”

Kiara looked over at her, brow furrowed. “You mean that, don’t you?”

“I do. I’ve loved you since I met you, since you first looked at me, not even able to say my name yet,” Calliope whispered as she took Kiara’s hand properly. “You called me Calli, and told me you liked butterflies.”

“You asked which ones I liked most,” Kiara said softly.

“And you told me the purple ones,” Calliope finished for her, lifting her hand and kissing it softly. “I wrote my first poem that afternoon, in big ugly letters in purple crayon, about butterflies and my new best friend’s eyes.”

“I still have it, tucked away somewhere. I drew a butterfly on it,” said Kiara, matter of factly.

“I loved you even then, before I knew what love was.”

“I’ve loved you just as long. I told Amelia all about you that afternoon, even though she was too little to understand. She held my finger and gurgled at me, and I told her your name.”

“You loved me?” Calliope whispered.

“I never thought I was very good at hiding it, I kissed you every chance I got,” said Kiara.

Calliope moved closer, a quiet smile on her lips as she breathed, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Calli.”

-

Rubbing her eyes on her arm, Kiara made her way to the kitchen. It was blissfully early, and she hoped she could get Calliope breakfast made before anyone else was up. She knew Reine was around, had said a quiet good morning to her and left her in the kitchen with a smile. It was the young cousin she worried about.

Kiara closed the fridge, nearly dropping the two eggs in her hands when she saw Ina standing there, cup of coffee in hand and wearing a smirk.

“Well, well, look who stayed the night,” Ina murmured around the lip of her mug, looking altogether too smug.

“I did not,” Kiara lied. Why she was lying to her she did not know, but she felt judged.

“No? Is the kitchen at home not working? Were you looking to borrow eggs? Just felt like some early morning breakfast and entering?” Ina teased.

Looking at the girl, Kiara frowned. “How is it Amelia thinks she’s the one in control?”

“It’s a delicate balance,” said Ina as she made to leave, but stopping when she saw the frying pan. “She likes omurice.”

Blinking, Kiara held the eggs tighter and looked at her, startled. “How do I make that?”

“I can help,” Ina offered. The way she was grinning told Kiara what she would say before she said it. “For a favour.”

“What’s that?” asked Kiara, willing to do just about anything to impress Calliope.

“Pretend not to notice when I make two and take one to Amelia in my room,” Ina said simply.

“Amelia is at,” Kiara began but already the last word was dying on her tongue as she realised what Ina was really telling her. “Home.”

“As far as you know, and so much as you’ll tell her, yes,” Ina laughed, taking the eggs from Kiara and putting her coffee down to begin cooking.

Kiara stared in muddled confusion and awe, not sure what to make of the girl that her little sister was dating, but knowing that, at least, Amelia would be kept rather firmly in line, whether she knew it or not.

-

Family dinners with the Pavolias were exactly as chaotic as she remembered them to be.

Though it had been nearly three years since she had last sat at their table with Calliope, it was a feeling she had never forgot, and an experience she had always valued. The chaos was controlled, the company was lovely, and the food was always outstanding.

For the first time, however, she sat at their table not just as a guest, not just as a friend, but as Calliope’s girlfriend. Calliope had introduced her as such, to the delight of her family, and she had sat down across from Amelia at the table, listening as Reine told them both with nothing but the most earnest delight and joy that she was so happy to finally have them both back at their table.

It was as Calliope got her food and Amelia babbled to Ina about her newest video game and Reine asked her quietly if she wanted wine with dinner that Kiara felt a smile split across her face.

Gently holding onto Calliope’s hand under the table, Kiara found it was squeezed reassuringly, as if to tell her she knew it was a lot, to thank her for being understanding, and Kiara squeezed back, to tell her that it was alright, and to thank her, for being there with her, and for giving her a family.

Though she did not know if Calliope understood all the words held within her hand, she knew she understood it when she leaned over and kissed her, that she was thanking her not just for that night, but for everything.


End file.
